


Regret

by Diranda



Category: Aperture Science MUSH, Portal (Video Game), Portal 2: The (Unauthorized) Musical - geekenders
Genre: ASM, Gen, Portal 2 AU, Portal 2 Android Cores, Post-Portal 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 05:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10507593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diranda/pseuds/Diranda
Summary: This is the result of an RP that the Aperture Science MUSH folks did in 2011. Folks wanted to know what had happened between Tenacity and Research (Lily) (both my characters) so I wrote the scene down for them.





	

Regret and Deservedness  
(written to "Exile Vilify")

Ever do something you regret?  
Really end up regretting later?  
And there's nothing you can do about it?  
Nothing?

I knew Lily was there. Heard her. Didn't see her. Didn't see much of anything other than what Eve -wanted- me to see.  
The door slammed and silence exploded through the lab.  
I was grateful for the semidarkness.  
Electrical shock is different for something like me. It doesn't burn. Dissapate. It ... lingers. Plays though you. Over and over. Until it no longer has anything to feed on.  
When you're dead.  
Eve fed it directly into me. Through my charging port. Shot through me like lightning. Continued to shoot through me, even long after she'd left me. That would have been bad enough but for the fact that she'd destroyed my ability to resist pain. By mangling my pain receptor, the slightest twinge of pain was excruciating. And what -she'd- been doing was...  
I was surprised I was still conscious.

"...oh god... T-Tenacity...?"  
I could hear the choked sobs in her voice.  
"...Lily." My own voice was rough, strained. I swallowed hard. I'd been... screaming... at the end. Shifting slightly against the chains wrapped heavily around me, I groaned softly, pain throbbing through my body.  
~Because you deserve to suffer everything your victims did.~  
"...I'm sorry..." Lily breathed, "god, I'm so sorry..."  
"No." It was immediate and sharper than I meant it to be. I swallowed hard, hissing softly at the sensation even -that- small of a movement caused. "I-I mean... don't apologize, Lily. N-not to -me-."  
Never to me.  
I'd been horrible to her. More than horrible. She had no cause to apologize for anything. Ever.  
"...I should have done something."  
"They'd have killed you too," I whispered. "You saw what they'd done to Intrepid..."  
"What...?"  
Oh god, she -didn't- know. I groaned.  
"She's dead, Lily. They... -Eve- killed her... obviously to make a point."  
"She can be reassembled, right?" Her voice was even more unsteady now. Trembling. Lily knew full well what death meant for her. For -me-. Unlike the Others, we couldn't be reassembled.  
"Yeah," I murmured, "but I'm not sure what the Reassembler has in its memory for her. She could come back as Timid."  
Lily hissed softly herself.  
"They're going to kill -you-," she said.  
"Ripping out my eyes first, apparently," I muttered. "Although I wouldn't put it past Eve to tear them out, just to shove them back in so I can watch her kill you and everyone else she manages to get her hands on."  
Silence.  
I closed my eyes then.  
I hoped. I -prayed- to whatever higher power might consider looking after androids, that Lily had taken the hint and gotten out. She may have felt sorry for me but--  
A hand brushed gently over my cheek and I stiffened. Not from pain.  
From shock.  
My eyes snapped open and fixed on misty wet emerald green ones.  
She's beautiful, you know. Soft, deep green eyes like the rolling hills of Ireland, bright red hair like my own, soft and pretty and round. She was designed that way by the same man who created me. Because of him, she's also very much my type. Or had been. Until starlit silver and moonlit titanium stole my heart.  
At least Eve wouldn't be able to rip -that- out of me.  
It was safe.  
"Lily, you've got to get out of here," I whispered, "go, now."  
"I won't leave you here like this," she said. "You don't deserve this. You-you -don't-."  
~Everything that she is going to do to you... you deserve. Every bit of it.~  
I -did- deserve it... I knew I did. It was karmic. I deserved to pay for what I'd done--what I as -Control- had done, what -Simon Quinlan- made me do. All of it. I knew that now. I hadn't done enough to make up for my past mistakes. It didn't matter if I -wasn't- Control or Quinlan any longer, I'd still done those things in one form or another.  
Vaguely, I wondered if my existance now was some kind of karmic retribution for Simon Quinlan's life. If I was, in fact, a punishment of some kind.  
I'd been fighting for independence from them, trying to find myself in the chaos... I thought I'd been doing better... I'd managed to help somewhat... to even gain some semblance of affection and trust from many of the Others. I'd created a family. I had a best friend now.  
I'd found... love...  
"God, Tenacity, there's oil everywhere," Lily whispered. "...I've got to get you out of here..."  
Apathy would tear Aperture apart once he learned what had happened, if Holly survived that long.  
My heart wrenched and I groaned softly.  
Holly, the last I'd seen of her was a flash as she went down in a spray of oil before everything went black. I should have done more, protected her. She was part of the family, she was my best friend's love... she...  
"...No," I said, "Lily, you need to go. Get out of here while you still can. Find Holly, help her. F-find Apathy... stop him..."  
"Apathy?"  
I nodded, wincing in pain. "Stop him. He'll kill everything in his way to get to me. You -know- this. You've got to stop him, Lily. If Eve and Medical catch him, they'll--" I choked. Coughed slightly. Sputtered. Opening my eyes, I looked at her again. "...-please-, Lily. Stop him. Holly may be dead. Intrepid already is. Nobody else is going to die on -my- account." I winced and swallowed hard, pain lancing through me. "They won't just kill him, Lily. Not at first... you -know- they won't. You -know- what they'll do to him if they catch him. They'll do it and make me watch."  
She looked at me. She was crying. Silently. She shook her head.  
"He'll bring Wilson and Quiet and whoever else he can find, if he even stops to think about it that long and they'll be waiting for him... please, Lily. Get the hell out of here, find him and stop him. Tell him not to come. Tell him I'm already dead if you have to, just... just -stop- him... I can take anything they do to me but that. They'll torture, reprogram and kill him just because they know it will destroy me. Nobody else, Lily... Nobody else will die because of me. -Especially- not m'fiorghra... n-not Apathy..."  
"...No... Tenacity... I'm not going to leave you here. I can't let them kill you... you don't deserve--"  
"Stop that!" I snapped at her. "Dammit, if you ever did anything I've ordered you to in your life, Research, do -this-. I deserve it. I'm not an idiot. I -know- I do. But -you- don't. -Holly and Intrepid- didn't. Wilson and Quiet don't. And I won't have them dying because of me."  
Lily frowned at me. "I don't believe that. You're not in your right mind, Tenacity."  
I shuddered. Pain shot through me and I fought to keep from surrendering to it. It would be so easy at this point. To just fall into the welcoming blackness that kept beckoning me from just beyond my sight. To fall into it and shut Lily and her infuriating sensible logic out. A fresh burst of electricity kindled inside me and I tensed, groaning softly.  
She reached out to touch me and -nearly- recoiled as a sharp static spark of bright acid yellow arced off my impaled shoulder and into her hand. She gasped in pain herself and then gently pressed her hand down on my arm, fighting off the shock, pain with a resolute resolve etched on her face.  
Yes, Lily could take shock. Pain. I'd seen that look on her face before and a pain of an entirely different sort lanced through me. -I'd- seen that look. When -I- had been the one causing it.  
I swallowed hard.  
"Nobody's going to die because of you. Nobody's going to let them kill you either. Nobody wants you dead." Her fingers curled around my shoulder. Oil seeped between them but she didn't let go. "-I- don't want you dead."  
I looked at her.  
"I'm not going to just -let- them kill me. Hell no. I'm going down fighting. Apathy will kill me himself if I don't." My throat went dry.  
Apathy was my lifeline. My focus. The only thing -keeping- me conscious and fighting. Keeping me alive. The thought of him was the only thing I'd been able to hold onto when the electricity was coursing through my veins, heating my oil to near boiling and threatening to tear my senses from me.  
Apathy would be furious with me if I gave in now.  
And a furious Apathy was not something I ever wanted to see. Not directed at -me- at any rate.  
"I-I'm not giving up. I'll fight and when they kill me, it won't be for nothing. It's the least I can do to make up for what I've done. But I refuse to put anyone else at risk because of me. That's why you have -got- to go. You have -got- to find Apathy and stop him. Save him. Save him and the others so they -can- fight if it comes down to it. If my death doesn't satiate them, at least I'll know there's still someone out there who can fight. Who -will-."  
She looked into my eyes a long, tense moment. "Tenacity..." I could see the shadows of uncertainty still lingering there. What I was saying, what I -was-, still didn't synch on some level. I didn't blame her for being confused. I just wished she'd -listen-. For once. Couldn't she see it was for her own good? Saving -her- life and everyone elses?  
"...Go," I said, my voice less firm than I would have liked, but still carrying a ring of authority that I knew she'd -have- to respond to. Regardless of what we were to each other now, there was still a shred of obedience left in her. I -knew- it. I'd -seen- it. Not too long ago. Yet, even as I looked into her eyes, I softened. "...I-I won't be defied in this..." my voice broke. "Lily."  
Her hand caressed my cheek, trailing streaks of oil through the tracks of dampness that weren't quite dry.  
"Tenacity..."  
I shook my head. "...don't."  
"I can't..."  
"You can."  
"I don't want to--"  
"You -must-."  
She swallowed hard. "...is there anything you want me to tell him?" she breathed.  
I looked at her a long, agonizing moment. My vision began to darken and I felt myself slipping. Lily was beautiful, but hers weren't the last eyes I wanted to gaze into before my own were taken from me. I wanted silver. Bright, almost painfully bright sometimes, misty, liquid mercury, stormy silver. I wanted the touch of titanium silk, the sound of his soft, young, musical voice.  
I opened my mouth and nothing came out. I blinked at her.  
Lily smiled. Softly. Gently.  
"I'll tell him," she whispered.  
And with that, she was gone.


End file.
